Mostly because they believed that Britain needed them. They relied on Britain getting cotton and other resources from them while in reality the British didn't need it as much, which meant that their plans were wrong from the start and that they would eventually fail economically. This is why their economy started failing and their money started losing value so they couldn't manufacture things and they couldn't sell them which meant that they couldn't sustain the war effort and and couldn't sustain their struggle. Eventually they lost the civil war because of things like this.
U.S. participation in NATO was a break with tradition, since the United States for the first time set itself up to automatically get involved in foreign conflicts--something that was very unnerving for a country of people who for most of American's history had been very isolationist.
Answer: The importance of Timbuktu to African heritage is priceless due to its historic position in West Africa as a major economic city during the 15th and 16th centuries. It is also considered an important city for the spread of Islam in Africa, due to the efforts of the prestigious Koranic University of Sankore